Which Audio Format Do You Use?

Cleisthenes

Cleisthenes

Cleisthenes

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Just curious really amongst us who care about sound quality :)

Recently I heard all about FLAC and ALAC etc and thought I would see. So tried a 256 kbps AAC file purchased from iTunes and compared it to some FLAC. I don't know whether it was placebo or whether I actually heard a difference, but I now am storing all of my new music (and some older stuff) in FLAC. Yes it takes up a load of space (roughly 10MB per minute) but I just want the best that I can get for my money :D

So; which format do you use?
 
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I'm the same. I can't really tell the difference between some bitrates and frequences. Though onboard audio and mid-range speakers probably don't do FLAC/ALAC at high bitrates any justice.

Most of my music is MP3 at 192kbps/16bit/44KHz or higher. And I can't tell the difference between that and higher haha. Damn my untrained ears.
 
I would notice pretty fast if all of my music suddenly became 192kbps.

The bit rate has been found to be worthless (being higher than 16 I mean), as it is the range of noises that the cans can put out iirc and most songs only have a small range. Classical having the largest range but still no where near enough to need 24 bit
 
Mine are all 256 or 320kb/s MP3s - I couldn't tell the difference between them and FLAC and couldn't see any point in wasting disk space.
 
i rip my CDs to TAK.

i use vorbis @ q6 (~192kbps) on my sansa clip+ when out and about.

also i have a bunch of mp3s i've downloaded over the years (amazon, dj sets etc)
 
eh? flac is extremely well supported across just about all hardware/software platforms - the obvious exception being the crapple universe.

i don't mind TAK's limitations because i only use one player on my pc to play it - foobar2000. i don't need compatibility with anything else.
 
I don't really have the space for FLAC especially as I'm a regular purchaser of new (to the world and to me) music.

I also ripped the majority of my music in 320CBR which as I now know was really stupid as v0 vbr is just as good except it will cut out proper silence and reduce file size acordingly. I'm not sure I can convert 320cbr to v0vbr though, I have a feeling this would result in a file worse then source to v0vbr? Plus I can't really be bothered to spend the time going through my entire library, I only do that when I want to listen to something :p

With new music I go with v0 vbr though.
 
You could re-source the albums again maybe?

Unless 128GB MicroSD cards come out soon my phone's card only has 9GB left so I'll have to go v0 exclusive in some months to come :p

Flac is great though, just having lossless on the go is cool whether the difference is audible or not. It works on everything I play on be it the car via Bluetooth or on the walk to and from work or at the PC.
 
mrk said:
You could re-source the albums again maybe?

Unless 128GB MicroSD cards come out soon my phone's card only has 9GB left so I'll have to go v0 exclusive in some months to come :p

Flac is great though, just having lossless on the go is cool whether the difference is audible or not. It works on everything I play on be it the car via Bluetooth or on the walk to and from work or at the PC.
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I hope to be able to use flac on the go soon. Have an iPhone at the mo but a Note 2 is in the post and at the end of the year when my contract ends I think I'll be getting a Note 4 unless apple pulls something miraculous out of there arse. I've heard that you can play flac on android, is this correct?
 
Re-ripping my albums would be such a monumental pain in the arse. As seems to happen at my workplace I'll just call it a legacy issue and then I don't have to worry about it.

Blutooth in the car is the only reason I can't go fully FLAC :p I like my entire library with me at all times :D
 
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Legacy problem? :P

Cleisthenes said:
I hope to be able to use flac on the go soon. Have an iPhone at the mo but a Note 2 is in the post and at the end of the year when my contract ends I think I'll be getting a Note 4 unless apple pulls something miraculous out of there arse. I've heard that you can play flac on android, is this correct?
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Yup. You also have aptX for bluetooth streaming on virtually all new Samsung phones so your lossless music will be streamed lossless as well to whatever amp/speaker or car head unit you have that also is aptx capable. If it doesn't support that technology then it will simply fallback to normal bluetooth (v2/3/4 whatever it is) which is still very good.
 
mrk said:
Legacy problem? :P



Yup. You also have aptX for bluetooth streaming on virtually all new Samsung phones so your lossless music will be streamed lossless as well to whatever amp/speaker or car head unit you have that also is aptx capable. If it doesn't support that technology then it will simply fallback to normal bluetooth (v2/3/4 whatever it is) which is still very good.
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God, this makes me want a Note 3 and to go back to android. I had a HTC Desire HD about 3 years ago which was good, but had the most pathetic battery known to man :D
 
mrk said:
Legacy problem? :P
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Yeah, it was a problem in the past and it couldn't be fixed then so obviously there's no way it can be fixed now in the future. It's actually quite concerning how often I hear this, only to be able to fix things after a few hours working on it. People are just lazy I guess. I won't re-rip my library until I go full FLAC, but this will require mobile storage to become better first.
 
I will go cloud based storage (Google Music) when they stop transcoding uploaded Flac files to mp3 320 but until then local storage for me too. 64GB card simply isn't going to be big enough for all my music by the time Q4 rolls by I imagine hence hoping 128GB cards come out soon!
 
128 would be great. I have about 40gb of music in 256 at the mo so i hate to think how much i'll have when I go full flac! I have to get the greatest size of iphone any way :( I need 128 gb!
 
Cleisthenes said:
128 would be great. I have about 40gb of music in 256 at the mo so i hate to think how much i'll have when I go full flac! I have to get the greatest size of iphone any way :( I need 128 gb!
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Sandisk are working on it so I hear!
 
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